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Read Ebook: The Lost Manuscript: A Novel by Freytag Gustav
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Ebook has 5259 lines and 279958 words, and 106 pages
A Discovery
The Hostile Neighbors
A Fool's Errand
The Old House
Among Herds and Sheaves
A Learned Lady from the Country
New Hostilities
Tacitus Again
Ilse
The Wooing.
Spitehahn
The Departure from the Estate
The First Greetings of the City
A Day of Visits
Among the Learned
The Professors' Ball
The Deception of Mr. Hummel
Cloudlets
The Illness
A Court Matter
A DISCOVERY.
It is late evening in the forest-park of our town. Softly the foliage murmurs in the warm summer air and the chirping of the crickets in the distant meadows is heard far in among the trees.
Through the tree-tops a pale light falls down upon the forest-path and upon the dark undergrowth of bush and shrubbery. The moon sprinkles the pathway with shimmering spots, and kindles strange lights in the mass of leaves and branches. Here, the blue streaks of light pour down from the tree-trunks like streams of burning spirits; there, in the hollow, the broad fern-branches gleam from out the darkness in colors of emerald gold, and over the pathway the withered boughs tower like huge whitened antlers. But between and beneath, impenetrable, Stygian gloom. Round-faced moon in heaven, thine attempts to light this wood of ours are feeble, sickly, and capricious. Pray keep thy scanty light upon the highway leading to the city; throw thy faded beams not so crookedly before us, for at the left the ground slopes precipitately into morass and water.
Fie, thou traitor! Plump in the swamp and the wayfarer's shoe behind! But that might have been expected. Deceit and treachery are thy favorite pastimes, thou wayward freak of heaven. People wonder now that men of primitive times made a God of thee. The Grecian girl once called thee Selene, and wreathed thy cup with purple poppies, by thy magic to lure back the faithless lover to her door. But that is now all over. We have science and phosphorus, and thou hast degenerated into a wretched old Juggler. A Juggler! And people show thee too much consideration, to treat thee as a thing of life even. What art thou, anyhow? A ball of burnt out slag, blistered, airless, colorless, waterless. A ball? Why our scientists know that thou art not even round--caught in a lie again! We people on the earth have pulled thee out of shape. In truth thou art pointed, thou hast a wretched and unsymmetrical figure. Thou'rt a sort of big turnip that dances about us in perennial slavery--nothing more.
The wood opens. Between the wayfarer and the city extends a broad stretch of lawn, and in the centre a large pond. Welcome, thou dale of verdure! Well-kept paths of gravel lead over the forest meadow; here and there a clump of waving undergrowth is seen, and beneath it a garden-bench. Here the well-to-do citizen sits of an afternoon, and resting his hands upon the bamboo-cane that he carries, looks proudly over upon the towers of his loved city.
Is the meadow, too, transformed to-day? A swelling expanse of water seems to lie before the wayfarer; it seethes and bubbles and plays about his feet, in endless masses of mist, as far as the eye can reach. What army of hobgoblins do lave their garments here! They flutter from trees, they course through the air, faint in outline, now dissolving, now intermingling. Higher the dim, dark figures soar. They float above the wayfarer's head. The gloomy mass of forest disappears. The very vault of heaven itself is lost in the misty darkness, and every visible outline sinks in the chaos of paling light and floating shapelessness. The solid earth still stays beneath the feet of our traveler, and yet he moves on, separated from all actual earthly forms, amid glimmering bodiless shadows. Here and there, the floating illusions again gather. Slowly the phantoms of air sweep through the veil that encompasses our wayfarer. Now the bent figure of a woman in prayer presses forward, broken with sorrow; now a troop in long, waving robes appears, as of Roman Senators, with emperor, halo-encircled, at their head. But halo and head dissolve, and the huge shadow glides, headless and ghostly, by.
Mist of a watery meadow, who hath so bewitched thee? Who else but that aged trickster of heaven, the moon, the mischief-maker moon.
Retreat, illusory shadows! The low-ground is passed. Lighted windows shine before the wayfarer. Two stately houses loom up at the city's outskirts. Here dwell two men--taxpayers, active workers. They wrap themselves, at night, in warm blankets, and not in thy watery tapestries, Moon, woven of misty drops that trickle from beard and hair. They have their whims and their virtues, and estimate thy value, O Moon, exactly in proportion to the gas saved by thy light.
A lamp, placed close to the window, shines from one of the upper rooms in the house on the left hand. Here lives Professor Felix Werner, a learned philologist, still a young man, who has already gained a reputation. He sits at his study table and examines old, faded manuscripts--an attractive looking man of medium size, with dark, curly hair falling over a massive bead; there is nothing paltry about him. Clear, honest eyes shine from under the dark eyebrows; the nose is slightly arched; the muscles of the mouth are strongly developed, as might be expected of the popular teacher of young students. Just now a soft smile spreads over it, and his cheeks redden either from his work or from inward emotion.
The Professor suddenly left his work and paced restlessly up and down the room. He then approached a window which looked out on the neighboring house, placed two large books on the window sill, laid a small one upon them, and thus produced a figure which resembled a Greek , and which, from the light shining behind became visible to the eye in the house opposite. After he had arranged this signal, he hastened back to the table and again bent over his book.
The servant entered gently to remove the supper, which had been placed on a side table. Finding the food untouched, he looked with displeasure at the Professor, and for a long while remained standing behind the vacant chair. At length, assuming a military attitude, he said, "Professor, you have forgotten your supper."
"Clear the table, Gabriel," said the Professor.
Gabriel showed no disposition to move. "Professor, you should at least eat a bit of cold meat. Nothing can come of nothing," he added, kindly.
"It is not right that you should come in and disturb me."
Gabriel took the plate and carried it to his master. "Pray, Professor, take at least a few mouthfuls."
"Give it to me then," said he, and began to eat.
Gabriel made use of the time during which his master unavoidably paused in his intellectual occupation, to offer a respectful admonition. "My late Captain thought much of a good supper."
"But now you have changed into the civil service," answered the Professor, laughing.
"It is not right," continued Gabriel, pertinaciously, "that I should eat the roast that I bring for you."
"I hope you are now satisfied," answered the Professor, pushing the plate back to him.
Gabriel shrugged his shoulders. "You have at least done your best. The Doctor was not at home."
"So it appears. See to it that the front-door remains open."
Gabriel turned about and went away with the plate.
The scholar was again alone. The golden light of the lamp fell on his countenance and on the books which lay around him; the white pages rustled under his hand; and his features worked with strong excitement.
There was a knock at the door; the expected visitor entered.
"Good evening, Fritz," said the Professor to his visitor; "sit in my chair, and look here."
The Doctor looked at the excited features of his friend. "Do not keep me in suspense. The first words sound very promising, but they are not a title; some pages in the beginning may be deficient."
The Doctor sprang up, and a flush of joy overspread his face.
"Excellent!" exclaimed the Doctor. "And the monk, delighted with the successful translation, wrote the title on the manuscript? Glorious! the manuscript was a Tacitus."
"Hear further," proceeded the Professor. "In the third and fourth century A. D., both the great works of Tacitus, the 'Annals' and 'History,' were united in a collection under the title, 'Thirty Books of History.' For this we have other ancient testimony. Look here!"
The Professor found well-known passages, and placed them before his friend. "And, again, at the end of the manuscript record there were these words: 'Here ends the Thirtieth Book of the History.' There remains, therefore, no doubt that this manuscript was a Tacitus. And looking at the thing as a whole, the following appears to have been the case. There was, at the time of the Reformation, a manuscript of Tacitus in the Monastery of Rossau, the beginning of which was missing. It was old and injured by time, and almost illegible to the eyes of the monks."
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